


imagine death so much it feels more like a memory

by Slumber



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Old Guard (Movie 2020) Fusion, Blood and Violence, Character Study, Immortals, M/M, Minor: Bokuto/Kuroo, Minor: Sakusa/Atsumu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:48:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26027503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slumber/pseuds/Slumber
Summary: Hinata learns he is immortal on a sunny Wednesday morning, sand sticking to his legs and briny water burning the hundred little cuts and scrapes that lashed through his skin. By noon he has dried off enough to brush away the sand, his skin so smooth and unblemished that no amount of salt could make it hurt any longer.But he remembers the sting of it, fresh and phantom.In which Hinata figures out this whole immortality thing.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou & MSBY Black Jackals
Comments: 29
Kudos: 122





	imagine death so much it feels more like a memory

**Author's Note:**

> You don't need to have seen Old Guard to know what's going on (the basic premise is that a group of immortals works behind the scenes to try to help where they can, and there are no real spoilers in this fic, just some elements borrowed, then remixed), but it might work out better if you do! Plus, canon immortal gays. XD
> 
> And it's not part of Old Guard canon, but I saw [this fanart](https://twitter.com/S2HWH1UQ9n4ljYa/status/1289829469390123008) and thought that'd be a cool marking for the immortals. XD

Hinata wakes in flashes: the sound of crashing waves thundering close to his ears, the ache of a battle fought in his lungs, coarse sand and rock rough against his skin. _A smoldering battlefield riddled with scorched remains._ The sun, hot and unforgiving, burning him dry. _A soft mountain breeze catching the leaves in the quiet laziness of an afternoon._ Birds calling from up high, the muted murmuring of conversation from far away. _Sirens screeching warnings, thick smoke blanketing the sky._

The first breath he draws is a painful gasp, cutting through his chest like it's cleaving him in half. He hacks out mouthfuls of seawater, and when he pushes himself to his hands and knees he has to take another gulp of air to steady himself from the dizzying sensation that hits him next.

"Hey hey hey," someone is telling him, a warm hand on his left shoulder and a palm closing around his right bicep. "Take it easy. You're here. Breathe. We're here."

He breathes. Slow and careful, a guided inhale-exhale that fades into second nature as the strength seeps back into his muscles, the ache he feels all over ebbing away into a dull throb he can ignore. When he can focus his gaze he looks up, finding golden eyes framed by thick, almost cartoonishly defined silver-grey eyebrows blinking owlishly back at him.

"Hey," he says, and he smiles like Hinata can— _should_ —trust him. So he does. "I'm Bokuto."

There are two more men behind him, sitting a few meters away, a few meters from each other, their backs against the rocky outcrop of a small cliff. They're out in the open, but hidden by the natural enclave. Maybe that's by design too.

Hinata will learn their names not long after, slotted in between the other things he will learn, simple ordinary facts woven so deftly with the seismic, the earth-shattering, that Hinata can do nothing but let the world rearrange itself before him.

"That's Sakusa over there," Bokuto will say. _You've died, just now. But you've come back alive. That's going to happen a lot._ "That one's Atsumu. Our fearless leader." _You're one of us now. See these scars? Three claw marks down your back, right? Look, we got them too. No other wound will leave a mark on you anymore. Just these._ "What about you? What's your name?" _That's how we know. That, and the dreams. We saw you in ours, like you probably saw us too._

"Hinata," Atsumu says with a cursory nod. "Do you have any questions?"

They are patient when he asks, though it is not something they've had to do in nearly a century. Bokuto was the last, after all, off one of the wars. And even he has to be reminded which. 

Yes, this is real. No, they don't know how this happens. Yes, they can prove it's true, but death will always hurt, so he's welcome to try—does he want to? No, his family cannot know. It's not a good idea, with what they do. 

Hinata wants to ask exactly what they do, but he'd dreamt about that too, of a thousand different fights righting wrongs because no one else could. The question lies thick and heavy in the back of his throat. For now, Hinata swallows it down, and asks another.

"So, where's the other one?"

* * *

There is no other one.

What there _was_ once, however— 

"We were brothers," Atsumu says. He shakes his head. "Well. I suppose that doesn't really stop, does it? We still are, even after—What." 

Hinata's dreams only take them so far, and what he remembers grows hazy with each passing moment. 

But there's a lab, he's nearly certain, and signage that tells him it must still be located in Japan. Atsumu's brother is his mirror image, with black hair instead of blond, and he is strapped down, drowsy and restrained. No windows. The technician—scientist?—monitoring him wears indeterminate features, remaining a shadow hovering in the background. 

And there is a logo, of a sort.

"I don't recognize it," Hinata says, frowning, tracing what he remembers onto wet sand. "But it looked something like this?"

It's barely enough to go by, but Bokuto thinks he knows someone who can help. 

Atsumu's gaze narrows when he brings this up, but all he says is, "Call him."

* * *

Hinata learns he is immortal on a sunny Wednesday morning, sand sticking to his legs and briny water burning the hundred little cuts and scrapes that lashed through his skin. By noon he has dried off enough to brush away the sand, his skin so smooth and unblemished that no amount of salt could make it hurt any longer.

But he remembers the sting of it, fresh and phantom.

Is that what it means to be immortal? Is the memory of a thousand prior deaths what darkens the muted brown of Atsumu's eyes, what lances through the grim line of his jaw? _Our fearless leader_ , Bokuto had called him, but there is nothing brave in the hunch of his shoulders, just the heaviness of exhaustion settling in his silence, a resignation to slogging toward the inevitable.

In the quiet of their journey from coast to city, Bokuto fills in the gaps.

There were three of them before, too. A different group of three: Atsumu, his twin brother Osamu, and— 

"Kita taught them everything about what we are, like Atsumu's taught us everything when he found us," Bokuto tells Hinata. "But this was ages and ages ago, when the three of them roamed the country like gods."

"Like Inari," Sakusa murmurs, chiming in. His gaze flickers to Atsumu, something brief and unreadable flashing in the steel of his eyes before he shutters it away, as hidden as his mouth behind his mask. "Then Kita died. Actually died."

"I thought we couldn't—"

"He'd died enough times," Atsumu says like a mantra. "That's what Osamu thinks happened. And then, not long after, once we found Sakusa, Osamu was done, too. Said he needed time."

"It's been nearly half a millennia." Bokuto's smile is wry, his words a mix of fondness and nostalgia. He's never met Osamu, Hinata gathers as much, but he wonders how many stories he's been told.

"We stopped seeing him in our dreams after a while," Sakusa adds. "And he covers his tracks well. Used to, anyway."

"So then he should be fine, shouldn't—"

Bokuto sees the way Hinata's face scrunches up, and when he smiles it is almost gentle. "It might take a while for us to die," he says, "but we can be kept. And that can be much, much worse."

"Why? What can they do to you?"

It's quiet long enough that Hinata gets his answer.

* * *

It is late afternoon when they arrive in the city, its usually grey and stone palette instead reflecting dying sunlight in reds and oranges.

Hinata's struck by the mundanity of seeing civilization like this, a part of him convinced he'd left this behind when he died, but here they are, the four of them, weaving their careful way through the crowds of men and women in suits and uniforms and streetwear.

Bokuto leads the charge, walking into one of the many similarly-shaped office buildings towering over the streets with the familiarity of a frequent visitor, punching in the floor number once he swipes in a key card that Atsumu raises an eyebrow at.

"We have a lot of down time," Bokuto mumbles, shifting his gaze away.

"I didn't say anything," Atsumu says. 

Sakusa shoots him a look and scoffs. "You didn't have to."

The elevator dings open before Atsumu can respond, a man calling out a hello and ushering them into one of the offices along the long hallway, replacing the simmering tension with light greetings and glib small talk.

"Who's the new kid?" he asks, switching topics so deftly Hinata almost misses the introduction Bokuto's making.

"Nice to meet you, Kuroo-san," Hinata says, taking the hand held out to him.

"One of you, then?" Kuroo murmurs at Bokuto, the slight lift of his lips frozen in place as Bokuto nods. "Interesting. Pleasure to meet you, Hinata. Well, now that the pleasantries are out of the way—"

Atsumu follows after Kuroo, the two of them speaking in low, hushed tones Hinata doesn't fully understand. Kuroo pulls up a second seat next to his desk for Atsumu, three monitors blinking with quickly shifting information onscreen as he navigates through them with nimble keystrokes. Bokuto drapes himself on the back of Kuroo's chair—presumably to listen in, but his arm brushes against the back of Kuroo's shoulders, casual and intimate, and his attention is not on the screens as Atsumu's is, nor on what Kuroo is saying—just Kuroo.

"He's not very subtle," Sakusa observes. His tone betrays nothing, mask covering any quirk of his mouth, but his eyes glimmer with the shine of shared secrets. "Atsumu thinks it's because he's still young, but I disagree."

Hinata thinks he knows what Sakusa means. If Atsumu carries immortality like a burden, Bokuto wears it like a second skin, the gold in his eyes holding no weariness for life, the curve of his smile bright and wide and free of the weight of his hundreds of years of being. 

Tireless.

"Isn't Kuroo-san—"

"Mortal as they come," Sakusa confirms. "They both know it."

Kuroo answers a question Atsumu asks with a low chuckle, his face tilting in Bokuto's direction to let him in on the joke, and Hinata watches the way that laugh travels easy on Bokuto's face, open and unguarded. His laughter fades but the smile remains, an echo of the moment that lingers on his gaze even after Kuroo and Atsumu's discussion takes a more serious turn. 

"They don't care?" Hinata asks, looking up at Sakusa. "It doesn't matter?" 

"I'd say it's the other way around." He thinks he sees Sakusa's gaze soften. "Now every moment does."

* * *

Hinata doesn't remember the first time he dies until it happens again.

It's early into the rescue mission, sometime after they break into Basement Level 3 and before they get to Research Lab B. They'd given him a bulletproof vest to wear, not for safety as much as it is to avoid inconvenient delays, but a bullet fired into his neck makes blood bloom from his throat, pain lancing through him as gravity brings him down in the middle of a long, white-tiled, fluorescent-lit corridor. 

_That's right_ , he remembers, as the quiet calm of darkness swallows him whole. _It hurt like this too._

He comes to in moments some time later, the sensation much like waking but a hundred times worse. He wakes up alone, like they'd agreed they would. With ginger movements he pulls himself up to stand and tries not to look at the battlefield he leaves behind, wincing with every step until the pain seeps out of him and the tear in his neck reverts to smooth skin.

The lab doors are wrenched open when he arrives, blasted off their hinges. The inside is a wreckage, equipment in splinters and glass broken on the ground, the high-pitched screeching of an alarm piercing the air around them. Bokuto's limp in a corner, his wound freshly inflicted by how wet the blood gleams in the sharp lighting. Atsumu is bent over, a few meters away, palms pressed to Sakusa's side.

"You haven't stopped bleeding," Atsumu's saying, his voice holding none of its usual surety, rising in pitch with increasing panic. "Why isn't it healing?"

Hinata follows his gaze to the cut on Sakusa's arm, the tear in the fabric from when a bullet grazed it—in that first barrage of gunfire that nicked Hinata's neck—the way blood has continued to soak through when it should have already dried by now. 

Sakusa doesn't answer, his breathing labored and his eyes flashing with resolve. "They took Osamu through there," he grits out, nodding his head toward the other side of the room, pushing himself away from Atsumu and grabbing a roll of gauze from a pile of spilled medical equipment nearby. He tears off a chunk and wraps it around his wound, as tight as he can. "We're wasting time."

"Omi—"

"This changes nothing," Sakusa insists.

Bokuto stirs to life with a groan, a mumbled, "Wh's happenin'?" that no one answers, and a confused, "Sakusa, you're still bleedin'?" that hangs uncomfortable in the air around them.

Sakusa hobbles to his feet, held together by the sheer force of his will. "This changes _nothing_ ," he repeats, and the rest of them have no choice but to believe him.

* * *

"Nervous?" Sakusa had asked Hinata a few hours ago. After they figured out where Osamu was, but before they got there.

Hinata glanced up at him then, the huff of laughter coming out of his mouth a little too wobbly for him to pretend otherwise.

"It makes sense to be." Sakusa doesn't mince words, Hinata had noticed. "We're walking into certain death. It's going to suck. Then we'll get up and do it all over again. Because we know what will happen after, and it's easier when you know how it ends."

"But what if you don't—what if that's the last time you—"

Sakusa had only shrugged. "I'd say I've been running on luck long enough."

* * *

They head for the mountains, after.

Kuroo is already there when they arrive, waiting in a safehouse with a more complete medical kit than the one they had cobbled together from the lab. He drags Bokuto over to the kitchen to scrounge up something to eat while Sakusa's ushered into a corner, Atsumu shushing his protests with a glare as he rolls up his compression shirt to carefully unwind the blood-soaked gauze and the layers of fabric they'd added to stem the bleeding. 

Osamu snorts behind Hinata. "M'fine, by the way, in case you were worried," he tells his brother before he collapses onto the nearest seat with a sigh. They'd found him unconscious and pale, weakened by the battery of tests he'd been subjected to, but he'd slowly been regaining his energy on the way over, graduating from subdued caution to thinly contained bemusement at his rescue crew. 

"I know you are, so shut up," Atsumu huffs with barely any bite. He washes his hands in a water-filled basin, turning it red within moments, before he begins cleaning Sakusa's wound. "How long have you known?"

Atsumu's quieter when he asks, and something in the tone of his voice has Hinata feeling like an intruder.

"C'mon," Osamu tells Hinata, gesturing outside. "Let's get some fresh air."

It's cooler outside, an afternoon breeze gently catching the leaves. Hinata follows Osamu until they find a comfortable spot far enough away to give Sakusa and Atsumu their privacy. 

"They've always been like that. Better get used to it. Between you an' me, it's partly why I left in the first place," Osamu says to break the silence. He cracks a crooked grin, and it unnerves Hinata a little, seeing Atsumu's face wear a smile this easy. "Five hundred _goddamn_ years, and my stupid little brother still won't do anything about it."

Hinata blinks. "All this time?"

"All this time," Osamu says with a solemn nod. He must see something in Hinata's face, because the smile slips off his for a moment. "He'll be okay, you know. Sakusa. It's a flesh wound, and 'Tsumu knows what he's doing. It'll heal in time."

"But if it hadn't been a flesh wound—"

"We'll all die, eventually." Osamu's gaze softens. "The same thing happened to Kita. He nicked his finger on an arrowhead a few weeks before—then he made me promise not to tell 'Tsumu." He holds his finger up to his lips, swearing Hinata in on the secret too.

"Kita knew," Hinata murmurs, but he's not sure why this should surprise him.

The ghost of a smile is gentle on the corner of Osamu's lips. "He said there was no reason to be nervous about dying when we've had so much practice. No reason to be scared, either. What's done is gone."

 _This changes nothing_ , Sakusa had said.

Osamu turns to him. "You're starting to get it now, don't you?"

"I think so," Hinata says, glancing back toward the house. He can see Atsumu through the windows, standing up and leaning closer. He thinks they'll be out here a while longer. "You can only move forward."

"Do you know, then?" Osamu says. "What you're going to do next? 'Tsumu probably didn't make it seem like you got a choice, but this is up to you."

Hinata takes a deep breath and leans back to look at the sky. He knows why he's being asked.

Osamu's eager to get back home, he'd said earlier, not that he wasn't grateful for the help. But he's got a shop in a town, a young family waiting and worried. It had sounded like he'd lived through many lives since parting ways with his brother. 

It sounds like Hinata can, too.

"I'm here now," he says. It was just yesterday that he'd died, but it already feels like a lifetime ago. Today he is immortal. "I want to see what happens tomorrow."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for making it here! Kudos and comments are always welcome! If you liked what you've read, you can [share the tweet here](https://twitter.com/slumberish/status/1296837126022201346?s=20).
> 
> I've also written a handful of [Haikyuu!! fics](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slumber/works?fandom_id=758208).
> 
> And I'm on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/slumberish) if you wanna say hi!


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